You best change your avatar unless you want an ass whipping!

The movie's plot wasn't the greatest, especially in light of being the one of the best looking films ever...oh hell,,,it is THE best looking film...but the script wasn't crap either. It jsut wasn't epic. I DO think he can make it a trilogy, but I doubt that it's going to happen...

Yeah, that's very much the case.  I think I just got a little optimisitc that Cameron, who could have chosen to take some risks with his status, chose to play it safe himself.

I'd just watched Where The Wild Things Are a few days before and was amazed at the balls of Spike Jonez to take the amount of money he was given for this film and make a risky, meditative film that completely bucked the trend of what you'd be expected to do with that amount of money for a kids film.

At least Avatar wasn't bad, apart from a few cheesy lines.  Although derivitive the story was consistent and competently told, I just wanted more than a lot of familiar beats.  Maybe next time we visit Pandora Cameron will take a few risks.

Original scriptment was complex and had many more characters. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43429

Judging by what is actually left in the film it is a huge tragedy that all this was cut.

I agree. Where the Wild things are had some serious balls. I loved it!

Noah Antwiller from the Spoony Experiment made a great review of it with his brother.

I think he made some great points. He wound up hating it a lot more than I did, but a lot of the stuff he said made a lot of sense too:

The acting aside from Worthington and Weaver really is kind of hammy;

Most the characters (villains) are somewhat cartoonish (although that Colonel made me laugh out loud when he pulled that giant knife from the mech, and the scene of him drinking his coffee while everyone is being blown to hell was simply priceless);

The movie is way too long.

It's worth to see it just for the spectacle, but don't expect it to change your life or anything.

Interesting read, thanks for the link.  It does seem that along the way Cameron decided to focus on a core, simpler story, and ditched elements that would have given more depth and range to the story.

I've read a couple of interviews where he talks about the risk of the aliens and the whole focus on non-humans, so I wonder if in the end he decided that the story had to be very clear and known to make it as easy to absorb as possible, allowing the only major departure to be the setting and the focus on aliens as central characters vs human.

Hopefully, assuming Avatar does well - which I'm sure it will, I've seen estimates of $73 million weekend in US - and Cameron returns to the setting, he will feel that he can inject more complexity now that the audience has accepted his aliens as characters.

^^^ BOM is reporting it also raked in $159 overseas, which is pretty solid numbers, but I guess people expect it to do a little better in NA. The snowstorm kinda dampened the results tho. I didn't have a problem with the movie's length since I don't remember many deadspots that could have been taken out. Normally, I don't have a problem with movie's length, if the story flows...I know alot of people who had the same issue with LOTR films, eventhough personally, I would have preferred them to be a bit longer.

I didn't care that the story lifted big chunks of Princess Mononoke/Dances with Wolves. I had sky high expectations and for once they were exceeded. A truly beautiful visual experience that can only be fully appreciated in a real IMAX theatre(not these crappy upgraded screens that are popping up).
I just hope it has the legs in the US to knock Tranformers 2 off #1 for 2009. Should do between $900m-$1billion WW all up.
The "wait for the BR" crowd will be sorely disappointed.

I got a reaction, that's all I wanted